Saree Makdisi, professor of English literature at UCLA, latest book “Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation” chronicles life under Israeli military rule. As a part of his book tour, he was invited to do a book signing and reading at Washington, DC area’s well-known bookstore “Politics & Prose”. But, given that it is a crime to deviate from the “two-state solution” speak, his appearance was cancelled. So much for being a leftist bookstore…
Here is Saree’s op-ed in the Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/
article/2008/06/06/AR2008060603066.html
Banned in the U.S.A. (Almost)
I didn’t think America was a place where bookstores barred people for their viewpoints, until it happened to me, right here in Washington, D.C., the city of my birth.
I was scheduled to speak at Politics & Prose Bookstore and Coffeehouse last month about my latest book, “Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation.” My appearance was canceled when the bookstore owners realized that my book concludes by questioning the viability of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Instead it proposes a single democratic, secular and multicultural state in which Israelis and Palestinians live peacefully as citizens with equal rights.
“I do not believe that your book will further constructive debate in the United States,” one of the owners wrote to me in an e-mail. “A single state is not a solution.” I was dismayed that my invitation was rescinded because I express a different point of view from the one sanctioned by a supposedly independent bookstore. Yet the cancellation seems to fit into a larger pattern of nationwide censorship about this issue.
Stanford professor Joel Beinin had been invited to speak about Israel and Palestine at a Silicon Valley school last year; his appearance was canceled when the school was criticized for booking the event. Tony Judt of New York University was invited to speak about Israel and Palestine at the Polish Consulate in New York last fall; his talk was canceled after the consulate came under pressure from the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee.
The fact that senior scholars are prevented from speaking in well-known forums because they do not toe an official line suggests that the civic culture on which our country was founded has broken down, at least when it comes to Palestine and Israel.
Yet citizens can object to the muzzling of ideas. After receiving letters of protest and eloquent entreaties by bloggers, Politics and Prose decided last week to reissue my invitation. This reversal is an important step forward but questions still linger. Can we afford not to hear each other out as we evaluate our Middle East policies? Should Palestinians not be allowed to speak unless their erstwhile audience gets to tell them what to say? What, then, is the point of a conversation? What is the alternative to conversation?
What is so unspeakably wrong with saying that justice, secularism, tolerance and equality of citizens — rather than privileges granted on the basis of religion — should be among the values of a state?
– Saree Makdisi
The writer is a professor of English literature at UCLA.
Related posts:
- Apartheid and Israel’s politics of verticality
- One Country: One Person, One Vote
- Saree Makdisi Presents at the Palestine Center
- LA Times, Political Conformity, And Recognizing Apartheid’s Right To Exist
- Ali Abunimah on CSPAN-2
Remember, the Israel lobby has no influence in the US……
Posted by Lowfields | June 9, 2008, 3:02 amThis is an example of bookstore owners taking issue with the book. The Israeli lobby isn’t even involved. So many conspiracy nuts these days..
Posted by Anonymous | June 9, 2008, 5:14 amI love this.
A small bookstore in Northwest D.C. frequented by rich, white people doesn’t allow him a reading and it’s censorship by “the lobby.”
And then he’s given space in the Washington Post – the second most important national newspaper – to complain.
I guess “the lobby” dropped the ball on that.
This is why you guys will keep losing. Ridiculous. Funny. But ridiculous. And classic.
Perhaps a few more people read the Washington Post than go to a reading at Politics and Prose?
Jesus.
Almost dumber than Qui Qui giving up hope that Palestine will be liberated because the UAE didn’t boycott Dunkin Donuts.
Almost.
Unfortunately, while not as dumb, this kind of lack of ability to see the obvious is a much bigger problem than Qui Qui’s silliness.
Oh well.
Posted by Anonymous | June 9, 2008, 6:40 amShit, Anon, I think you’ve just invented a new literary style… the free-form nonsense prose ramble.
I don’t know what’s more amusing, your contention that publishers, newspaper columnists, politicians, broadcast networks, theatres, advertising agencies, blogs, etc, aren’t in receipt of a staggering amount of pro-Israel pressure – whether organised into a lobby or not – or that you believe the constant use of single-word paragraphs makes for impressive argument.
Idiotic.
Having worked in the States in various media capacities, and been involved to various degrees on the miniscule controversies over My Name is Rachel Corrie being staged in New York, Urban Outfitters withdrawing the “sensitive” keffiyeh, Marcel Khalifeh’s ban from a California concert hall because he wasn’t accompanied by an Israeli musician, Norman Finklestien losing tenure because of Alan Dershowitz’s letter writing campaign (etc, etc repeat til fade), it’s clear pressure is exerted from somewhere. Call it a lobby, call it the weight of “concerned” individuals, but pressure most certainly is applied by supporters of a foreign country to stifle debate on the question of Palestine.
Undeniable.
Of course, you are free to herald your continued “winning”, although I’m not sure what the prize is. Unless contempt is a medal you wear with honour.
Bravo.
Whatever.
Posted by Lowfields | June 9, 2008, 7:31 amLowfields… Jesus Christ. Your inanity boggles the mind sometimes.
Politics and Prose is a lefty bookstore in DC with opinionated owners. Having lived in DC four years, and having spent plenty of time in there, I can tell you that the idea anyone there would give a shit about offending “the Israel lobby” is downright laughable.
In the real world, which stubbornly refuses to conform to your conspiracy theories, almost nobody thinks that a one-state solution is anything other than an unqualified disaster waiting to happen, and a bookstore owner canceling his appearance is not an indication of all the larger things you’d like it to be.
And you have the nerve to call *him* idiotic?
Posted by Joe | June 9, 2008, 12:20 pmThe owners are clearly Jewish. (It’s that fat lady, isn’t it? Or is she the manager? I was there a decade ago; maybe she’s gone).
Posted by Anonymous | June 9, 2008, 5:38 pmWay to address the points raised, Joe…
Talking of inanity… actually, no, talking of idiotic… I love the fact that because you think a certain political position is untenable, it is grounds for an author who holds that opinion to have his talk in a bookstore cancelled!
Your mask of liberalism is beginning to slip a bit, mate….
Oh, and I’d like a definition of “almost nobody”… is that less than 10? Less than 1,000? If you ever both to travel to the Middle East, I can introduce you to… hmmmm…. 500,000 one-staters. Maybe more.
Or does being Arab define a “nobody”, just as it did when your favourite colonial project kicked off 110 years ago….
Also, is it really your genuine belief that no pressure is ever applied in the US to newspapers, theatres, internet sites, media networks, shops, corporations, politicians, etc, from pro-Israeli groups…?
Why is that a “conspiracy theory”…? A lot of groups openly boast about it…!
Whether this particular case falls into this “lobby” category or not – and you don’t adress the other instances mentioned in the original piece – it is still absolutely symptomatic of the kind of suppression of Palestinian voices and opinions that has been endemic in the States for the past 40 years.
I think I’ve said this to you before, Joe, but please, for the love of whichever God you like this month, open your fucking eyes.
Posted by Lowfields | June 9, 2008, 11:26 pmLobby or no lobby, the fact that a bookstore rescinds an invitation to a respected academic to speak on a vital issue should raise the hackles of anyone interested in intellectual and political openness. Same thing happened to Finkelstein a few years ago; Harvard Book Store invited him to speak, changed its mind, and issued a mewling and cowardly rationale for its disgusting behavior-something about the dispute between Finkelstein and Dershowitz being too acrimonious. As if literary and intellectual history is not overflowing with feuds and diatribes. Meanwhile, HBS’ only competitor in Harvard Square was happy to invite Dershowitz to plug his book at the same time.
Nothing to do with Dersh being a Harvard faculty member, of course.
Don’t disgrace yourselves further with rationalizing this foul quashing of debate, joe and anon.
Posted by Ismail | June 10, 2008, 11:47 amIsmail,
I wasn’t rationalizing it at all, and I would have no problem if he spoke.
All I said is that it’s completely ridiculous to whine about “the Lobby” on this issue when he has an op-ed in the second most important newspaper in the country.
As obvious as that is, it is clearly something lost on Lowfields, who continues to embarrass himself.
Anyway, the irony of entire discussions (and posts) like this on this website is the fact that Will spent plenty of time during college trying to shut down speeches/lectures given by people he didn’t like or disagreed.
Censorship – please.
Posted by Anonymous | June 10, 2008, 12:03 pmI finally agree with a KABOBfest post… too bad you didn’t write it. Figures. Everyone read KABOBfestWATCH!!!
Posted by Programmer Buydatti | June 10, 2008, 12:57 pmBuydatti,
Nobody likes you.
Sincerely,
Your mom.
Posted by Um Buydatti | June 11, 2008, 2:32 pm“”Lobby or no lobby, the fact that a bookstore rescinds an invitation to a respected academic to speak on a vital issue should raise the hackles of anyone interested in intellectual and political openness.”"
Uh… why? A bookstore is a private venue, accountable to itself and nobody else. I don’t look to bookstores to be temples of some intellectual ideal whom I rely on to invite speakers for my edification; I go there to buy books, and I select those books myself. Frankly, I find it annoying that bookstores hold extraneous speaking events like that at all, since they tend to draw out the neighborhood crazies on all sides, and the operating costs probably drive up the end price I pay.
Come to think of it, I can’t recall the last time I bought a new book in an honest-to-god bookstore; I get everything cheaper used, mainly on Amazon. (Though I did recently snag a cheap copy of Opposites: Side By Side, a debate between two Turkish public intellectuals, one Muslim and one Atheist, at Moe’s in Berkeley)
If you don’t like your bookstore’s actions, stop patronizing it. These are private institutions and it’s a free country. I don’t like the actions of the bookstores around here (charging me retail), so I don’t shop there.
Posted by Joe | June 11, 2008, 9:14 pm